


On the Couch

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Series: Brothelers [15]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitute, Statutory Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-07
Updated: 2010-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Don didn't know what exactly to expect of having Charlie around.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Couch

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first posted October 16, 2006.

Don didn't know what exactly to expect of having Charlie around. As he lay in bed the first night, listening for the sound of Charlie on the couch (listening for the sound of Charlie packing up the stereo and taking off), he found himself imagining it: something like the rare nights their parents had spent away from them when he and Charlie were in high school, leaving them home alone together. Something like that weekend at UCLA when Charlie had tagged along after him to practices and a game, both of them manically cheerful and pretending not to know that their parents were in the same city for the first time in months, signing papers in a lawyer's office. Something like having a roommate. Something like the time he'd watched a buddy's dog for a week.

Charlie was still fast asleep on Don's couch when Don got up that morning (and the stereo was right where he'd left it). Don went out for a run, and when he got back Charlie was still on the couch, and that turned out to be what having Charlie around was like. Food steadily disappeared from the fridge, and sometimes Charlie was asleep and sometimes he sat up and watched TV. At some point he must have taken a shower, because Don saw him sitting on the couch with wet hair, wearing Don's oldest sweatpants and the Princeton t-shirt Charlie had given him for Hanukkah four years ago. He kept both in the bottom of the same drawer; he thought about saying something, but it wasn't like he wouldn't have told Charlie to take a change of clothes if Charlie had asked, so all he said was, "Hey."

Charlie glanced up and said, "Hey," and that was that.

Every time Charlie was out of Don's sight--when Don went out to run, when he went out to buy more food and do the laundry, his stuff and Charlie's one change of clothes together (and he felt like an asshole checking, but there was nothing in Charlie's pockets)--Don expected the couch to be empty when he got back. But each time, Charlie was still there, looking like he'd always been there and always would be. Don had promised his dad he'd take care of his brother, and he wasn't sure this really constituted taking care. On the other hand Charlie had a roof over his head and food to eat, so Don figured he wasn't doing too badly.

* * *

The third day Charlie was there, Don went out for drinks with a few of the guys. When he got back, Charlie was still on the couch, still wearing Don's Princeton t-shirt even though his own clothes were clean, sitting neatly folded on the floor beside the couch. It was late, and Charlie was sprawled out on the couch, watching an infomercial about a juice machine. Don sat down next to him, almost on top of his feet, and Charlie squirmed around to make room without taking his eyes off the screen. Neither of them said anything, and Don's whole body felt heavy and still, from his feet to his eyelids. He stared at the TV and thought that he had to be drunk if juice involving carrots and onions sounded kind of good right now, and Charlie's foot pressed against his thigh. Don let his hand fall on Charlie's ankle, bare under the stretched-out cuff of Don's sweatpants, and Charlie wiggled his toes and said, "How old were you the first time you had sex?"

Don was instantly, reflexively tempted to lie--but he couldn't figure out what lie he wanted to tell, nevermind come up with the words, so he told the truth. "Seventeen."

Charlie's foot shoved at him a little, and when Don looked over Charlie had his head tilted, and his smile had a nasty hook to it. "Val?"

Don remembered, with the clarity of exactly enough alcohol sliding warm through his bloodstream, the way Charlie had struck him that day, jumping off the porch to tackle him onto the grass, pounding wildly at him with both fists, uncalculated, crazed. Don had told himself Charlie was just jealous because he wasn't going to the prom at all, and a little niggling voice in his head had said that Charlie as just _crazy_, like everyone said. He remembered the way his breath had whooshed out of his lungs and how he hadn't even been able to pull himself together to hit back until Charlie had smacked him in the mouth. "No," he said. "Not Val. I don't think you ever met her, she was on the softball team. She had pink hair and a nose ring and everybody thought she was a lesbian." Don's eyes went unfocused, seeing the shady grass behind the locker rooms instead of the incredible juicing machine, the smell of summer and sex all together. "She wasn't."

Charlie snorted. "I had French with her. Mel? Molly? She was Martine in class."

"Yeah," Don said, although he couldn't remember her name, just the number on her jersey (12) and the taste of her gum (original pink Big League Chew). "I told her my parents would freak if they met her."

It was only after he said it, with the words hanging in the air beside bright chatter about the nutritional value of apple peels, that Don thought maybe he shouldn't talk to Charlie about their parents freaking out at people. Charlie's foot stayed still against Don's thigh, and Don's throat went tight when he tried to think of how to unsay it, but eventually Charlie said, "They wouldn't, though. They would've thought she was a _free spirit_."

"Yeah," Don said, and wondered whether his mom had discussed the difference between _free spirit_ and _fuck-up_ and _fucking crazy_ with Charlie any time before he got shipped back to California for their dad to try keeping him under control. Or how many times. "I never would've lived it down," Don added, and Charlie snorted, and they both fell silent again.

Don wondered whether he should ask Charlie's question back--he kind of wanted to know, and at the same time felt queasy at the thought of knowing any more than the few clipped sentences his mother had explained over the phone, when the shit hit the fan and Charlie had to leave school. It was one of the three or four times he talked to his mom after the divorce; Charlie was on her side, and Don took his dad's. Of course, now Charlie was on nobody's side, and Don didn't have his mother's phone number or anyone he'd want to ask for it.

Before Don could make up his mind, Charlie said, "When I was thirteen," and then stopped. But that was math even Don could do: if Charlie was thirteen, it was before the divorce, before their parents told them what was going on, before the earth shook and cracked apart. Don had been away from the epicenter, at UCLA, but Charlie had been with their mom in Princeton, sitting right on the fault line (Charlie _was_ the fault line, some furious part of Don still thought, but even if it was ever true Charlie had paid for it--and anyway, he'd been just a kid then, was still just a kid _now_, sitting on Don's couch).

Don said, "Yeah? Thirteen?" like he didn't remember how tiny and round-cheeked Charlie was when he left, like the thought didn't make him sick.

He heard Charlie's shrug against the couch as much as saw it in his peripheral vision. "Not really, not--my Vector Algebra TA, we messed around. I'd go to her dorm all the time to study, mom didn't think anything of it, and she would--God, she was hot."

_You were thirteen_, Don thought, but he said, "How old was she?"

Charlie shrugged. "Twenty-three, twenty-four? Coming up on her comps."

Don let out a long breath and kept his eyes on the TV screen. She'd been older than Don was himself, and Charlie had been so young; and two years later even Don himself had believed it was all _Charlie's_ fault.

"The first time I really had sex was later, though," Charlie said idly, like it didn't matter at all. "I was fourteen, he was another student. The second-smartest person I knew. I couldn't figure out if I was in love with him or hated his guts."

Don looked over, but Charlie was still staring in the direction of the TV, though Don somehow doubted he was seeing it. Don had known that Charlie--that there had been men. His mother had managed to work in that pronoun in her brief explanation. Still, it was strange to hear Charlie say it so casually. Charlie smiled a little, and breathed a laugh without humor. "We figured that one out fast enough. Keg-stealing arrogant bastard. I got him back, though."

Don looked back to the TV, and decided that maybe he and Charlie shouldn't talk so much.

* * *

On the fourth day, Don stepped out of the bedroom and the first thing he saw was the empty couch, his sweats and t-shirt and the blanket Charlie had been using folded neatly on the middle cushion. He heard a click and ran for the front door, and Charlie was standing there, dressed just as he had been when Don first saw him. He winced when he saw Don, but waved toward the door and said, "I was just, uh. Going out."

Don held up his hands. "No problem. Just hang on one second, all right?"

Charlie shrugged, and Don went quickly back to his bedroom, digging a small envelope out of his coat pocket. He'd meant to do this sooner, better, but he hoped now would work. Charlie was miraculously still standing at the door when Don got back, and Don shook the key into his hand and held it out. "Here," he said. "In case I'm not home when you get back."

Charlie stared at Don for a long, frozen moment, and Don looked back steadily, like there was no question in his mind of whether Charlie would ever come back. Finally, Charlie took the key from Don's hand, fingers brushing Don's palm; Don's own fingers twitched with the impulse to grab him and keep him here, but he knew as well as anyone that that wouldn't work now. Charlie shoved the key into his pocket and muttered, "Thanks," and Don stood still and watched his brother walk away.


End file.
